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Satchmo's Chicago Debut: A Night That Changed Jazz

2025-02-07

Satchmo's Chicago Debut: A Night That Changed Jazz

This article recounts the legendary night in 1922 when Louis Armstrong arrived in Chicago to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. Ricky Riccardi, in his new book "Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong," vividly describes Armstrong's journey from New Orleans, his anxious arrival, and his electrifying debut at the Lincoln Gardens. This night marked a turning point in Armstrong's career, showcasing not only his immense talent but also his humility and respect for his mentor. The excerpt details the vibrant atmosphere, the personalities he encountered, and the unique collaborative style he developed with Oliver.

(www.honest-broker.com)

Misc Jazz Louis Armstrong Music Biography

Particle Life Simulation in the Browser: A WebGPU Power Play

2025-05-26

Particle Life Simulation in the Browser: A WebGPU Power Play

This article details a browser-based particle life simulation powered by WebGPU. The simulation uses a non-physical model with asymmetric inter-particle forces, creating life-like behavior. The author explains the model, WebGPU implementation, spatial hashing optimization for performance, and rendering techniques, including a parallel prefix sum algorithm for efficient binning. The result is a visually stunning simulation capable of generating diverse and interesting life forms, with options for custom rules and sharing.

(lisyarus.github.io)

Development Particle Simulation

TScale: Training LLMs on Consumer Hardware

2025-05-04

TScale: Training LLMs on Consumer Hardware

TScale is a transformer model training and inference framework written in C++ and CUDA, designed to run on consumer-grade hardware. It achieves significant cost and time reductions through optimized architecture, low-precision computation (fp8 and int8), CPU offloading, and synchronous and asynchronous distributed training. Even a 1T parameter model becomes tractable with clever indexing techniques, enabling training on typical home computers. TScale demonstrates immense potential in lowering the barrier to entry for LLM training.

(github.com)

AI Distributed Training Low-Precision Computing

Wells Fargo Scandal: How a Lack of Trust Fueled Fintech Adoption

2025-07-04

Wells Fargo Scandal: How a Lack of Trust Fueled Fintech Adoption

New research reveals the 2016 Wells Fargo scandal significantly shifted consumers towards fintech lenders over traditional banks. The study, published in the Journal of Financial Economics, highlights that a lack of trust, not interest rates or fees, drove this behavioral change. Analyzing Google Trends, Gallup polls, media coverage, and financial transaction data, the study found a measurable increase in fintech mortgage usage in areas with a strong Wells Fargo presence, even with comparable loan costs. This underscores the crucial role of trust, demonstrating how institutional misconduct can accelerate fintech adoption. The lesson extends beyond mortgages, impacting any service handling personal or financial data, including AI, cloud storage, and social media.

(nerds.xyz)

Tech

Curl's .onion Blocking: A Security vs. Usability Tug-of-War

2025-05-16

Curl's .onion Blocking: A Security vs. Usability Tug-of-War

To prevent DNS leaks of .onion domains by Tor users, curl implemented RFC 7686 two years ago, blocking resolution of .onion domains. However, this breaks the new Tor tool oniux, preventing it from using curl to access .onion sites. This highlights a security vs. usability conflict: strict RFC adherence impacts user experience, while relaxing restrictions increases security risks. The curl team is now working to find a solution that balances security and user needs.

(daniel.haxx.se)

Tech DNS leak

Stack AI Seeking 10x Engineers: Building an AI-Powered App Platform

2025-05-14

Stack AI Seeking 10x Engineers: Building an AI-Powered App Platform

Stack AI, an AI company founded by two MIT PhDs and backed by Y Combinator and Google, is hiring 10x engineers. They've built a no-code platform integrating AI models like OpenAI and Anthropic with various data sources, aiming to democratize AI application building. With over 85,000 users and 300+ paying customers, they need skilled Python, database, AWS, and containerization experts to build scalable backend systems and integrate AI models. Ideal candidates possess strong problem-solving skills, teamwork abilities, and a passion for AI.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Development AI Hiring No-Code Platform

RAG: The Overhyped GenAI Pattern?

2025-06-15

RAG: The Overhyped GenAI Pattern?

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) has become a popular approach in generative AI. However, this post argues that RAG suffers from critical flaws in high-stakes, regulated industries. The core issue is that RAG exposes users directly to LLM hallucinations by presenting the LLM's output without sufficient validation. The author suggests RAG is better suited for low-stakes applications like vacation policy lookups, while semantic parsing offers a safer alternative for high-stakes scenarios. RAG's popularity stems from ease of development, significant funding, industry influence, and improvements over existing search technologies. The author stresses that in high-stakes scenarios, direct reliance on LLM output must be avoided to ensure data reliability and safety.

(labs.stardog.ai)

AI Semantic Parsing

The Secret of Parabolic Microphones: Why High Frequencies Are Easier to Capture

2025-08-26

The Secret of Parabolic Microphones: Why High Frequencies Are Easier to Capture

Parabolic microphones are renowned for their extreme sensitivity, stemming from their considerable size. Similar to how telescopes use large parabolic mirrors to gather faint light, parabolic microphones use reflecting dishes to harvest faint sounds. However, this design has drawbacks: it's biased towards higher frequencies, leading to a sometimes 'tinny' sound quality, and lower frequencies experience reduced gain, with a cutoff frequency dependent on dish diameter. This article delves into the physics of parabolic microphone operation, explaining its frequency-dependent performance and the physical mechanisms behind its high-frequency gain, including reflection, reciprocity, interference, diffraction, and Huygens' wavelet model.

(legallyblindbirding.net)

Tech

Guix Successfully Builds a Fully Bootstrapped Mono: A Long and Winding Road

2024-12-31

The Guix system has successfully built a fully bootstrapped Mono environment, overcoming numerous challenges in the process. The author details their journey to support C# 12.0 features, encountering issues with older Mono versions relying on pre-built binaries. Through a series of patches, a fully bootstrapped chain from Mono 1.2.6 to 6.12.0 was created. Along the way, bugs in Mono and xbuild were fixed, and runpath support in Mono was enhanced. This not only solved the author's C# compatibility problem but also highlighted the importance of fully bootstrapped, reproducible builds and their impact on software security.

(guix.gnu.org)

Development Bootstrapped Build

Trump Admin Grants Electronics Tariff Exemption, Tech Giants Breathe Easy

2025-04-12

Trump Admin Grants Electronics Tariff Exemption, Tech Giants Breathe Easy

US Customs and Border Protection announced an exemption from retaliatory tariffs on imported electronics, including smartphones, computer monitors, and various components. This follows the Trump administration's imposition of a minimum 145% tariff on Chinese goods, a move that would have severely impacted tech giants like Apple. Analysts hailed the exemption as “the best possible news for tech investors,” providing significant relief. However, uncertainties remain regarding the impact on consumer prices and the future of US manufacturing. Nintendo even postponed the US pre-order date for its Switch 2 console due to tariff concerns.

(edition.cnn.com)

Tech

The Steep Price of Curbing R&D Tax Deductibility

2025-04-10

The Steep Price of Curbing R&D Tax Deductibility

New research reveals the significant negative consequences of limiting the tax deductibility of research and development (R&D) expenditures. Since 2022, US companies have been required to capitalize and amortize R&D expenses rather than deducting them immediately. The study finds that affected US firms experienced an average increase in their cash effective tax rate of 11.9 percentage points (62%). This resulted in decreased R&D investment among domestic-only, research-intensive, and constrained firms. In aggregate, these estimates translate to a $12.2 billion reduction in R&D in the first year among the most research-intensive firms. Furthermore, affected companies also reduced capital expenditures and share repurchases, suggesting that firms reduced other types of investment and shareholder payouts to meet the increased cash tax liability. The paper provides policy-relevant evidence of the substantial real-world effects of limiting innovation tax incentives.

(papers.ssrn.com)

Tech R&D tax deduction

c/ua: A Lightweight Framework for AI Agents to Control Full Operating Systems

2025-04-23

c/ua: A Lightweight Framework for AI Agents to Control Full Operating Systems

c/ua (pronounced "koo-ah") is a lightweight framework enabling AI agents to control full operating systems within high-performance, lightweight virtual containers. Achieving up to 97% native speed on Apple Silicon, it works with any vision language model. It integrates high-performance virtualization (creating and running macOS/Linux VMs on Apple Silicon with near-native performance using Lume CLI and Apple's Virtualization.Framework) and a computer-use interface & agent, allowing AI systems to observe and control virtual environments, browsing the web, writing code, and performing complex workflows. It ensures security, isolation, high performance, flexibility, and reproducibility, with support for various LLM providers.

(github.com)

AI

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn to Step Down

2025-09-10

EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn to Step Down

Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for the past decade and a long-time champion of digital rights, will step down in mid-2026. After over 25 years with the organization, Cohn's departure marks the end of an era. Her tenure saw EFF significantly grow its influence in defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation. The EFF board has initiated a search for her successor, aiming for a new hire next spring. Tributes poured in, praising Cohn's leadership and impactful contributions to the field.

(www.eff.org)

Tech Electronic Frontier Foundation

SimCity Megacity: A Dystopian Masterpiece

2025-05-02

SimCity Megacity: A Dystopian Masterpiece

Vincent Ocasla, a 22-year-old architecture student from the Philippines, spent a year and a half creating Magnasanti, a dystopian metropolis in SimCity 3000. This sprawling city, boasting a population of six million, is a chilling testament to oppressive social structures and control. Inspired by Koyaanisqatsi, Ocasla uses the game as a medium to explore themes of societal control and abuse of power. Magnasanti's citizens, trapped in a hyper-efficient police state, endure poverty, repression, and a life expectancy of only 50 years. This isn't just gaming; it's a profound critique of real-world issues.

(web.archive.org)

Game SimCity Dystopia

BrowserBee: Your In-Browser AI Assistant

2025-05-18

BrowserBee: Your In-Browser AI Assistant

BrowserBee is a privacy-first, open-source Chrome extension that lets you control your browser using natural language. It combines the power of an LLM for instruction parsing and planning with Playwright for robust browser automation. Running entirely in your browser (except the LLM), it safely interacts with logged-in websites without compromising security or needing backend infrastructure. It supports major LLMs like Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, and Ollama, and offers a wide range of browser tools for navigation, interaction, observation, and memory management, learning efficient tool sequences for future tasks.

(github.com)

Development

The Deathbed Fallacy: Why Your Dying Self Shouldn't Dictate Your Life Now

2025-05-10

This article challenges the common belief that deathbed regrets offer sound life advice. The author argues that the perspective of someone facing death isn't a reliable guide for current life choices. Deathbed perspectives are not representative of life as a whole, lack future context, and may misinterpret past selves. Furthermore, the challenges faced by different generations vary significantly. Instead of relying on deathbed regrets, the author suggests focusing on happiness research, emphasizing factors like stable income, relationships, experiences, and self-acceptance.

(www.hjorthjort.xyz)

Misc life planning

cute_headers: Single-File Cross-Platform C/C++ Libraries

2025-02-08

cute_headers: Single-File Cross-Platform C/C++ Libraries

cute_headers is a collection of single-file, cross-platform C/C++ libraries offering self-contained solutions for various tasks like 2D collision detection, networking, map loading, and sound playback. These libraries are dependency-free, easily integrated by including a single header, and efficiently implemented to avoid compile-time bloat. The clever use of a preprocessor macro handles implementation details, simplifying integration and build processes. Perfect for game development and other projects needing efficient, portable utilities.

(github.com)

Development C++ libraries

Meta Fights Back Against FTC Monopoly Claims: Instagram and WhatsApp Acquisitions Were Saviors, Not Killers

2025-05-16

Meta Fights Back Against FTC Monopoly Claims: Instagram and WhatsApp Acquisitions Were Saviors, Not Killers

Meta is vigorously defending itself against the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) antitrust claims. Meta argues that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were not intended to stifle competition, but rather to save the platforms. They point to Instagram's pre-acquisition state as "broken and duct-taped," vulnerable to spam, and WhatsApp founders' testimony that they never intended to become a social media platform. Meta emphasizes that its resource investment allowed both platforms to thrive, attracting hundreds of millions and then billions of users, and successfully monetizing. Meta dismisses evidence suggesting increased ad revenue and refutes emails implying Zuckerberg's intent to bury competitors as irrelevant.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech

Continuous Thought Machines: Giving AI a Sense of Time

2025-05-12

Continuous Thought Machines: Giving AI a Sense of Time

Modern AI systems sacrifice the crucial property of synchronized neural computation found in biological brains for the sake of efficiency. Researchers introduce the Continuous Thought Machine (CTM), a novel neural network architecture that incorporates neural timing as a foundational element, using a decoupled internal dimension to model the temporal evolution of neural activity. CTM leverages neural synchronization as a latent representation, demonstrating impressive capabilities in tasks such as image classification, maze solving, and parity checks, even building an internal world model for reasoning. Its adaptive computation and interpretability open new avenues for AI research.

(pub.sakana.ai)

AI temporal encoding

MG4 EV's V2L Function: 2-Hour Stress Test Passes with Flying Colors

2025-05-25

A user conducted a V2L (Vehicle-to-Load) functionality test on several electric vehicles. The Hyundai Ioniq disconnected after 10 minutes of idle connection, but the 2023 MG4 EV passed a 2-hour idle test without issue, even with a 120W load. Tests also involved a 5kW heater, which the MG4 also handled without problems. Other vehicles like Tesla and BYD Atto3 also passed. This suggests the MG4 EV's V2L function is robust and reliable as a mobile power source.

(openinverter.org)

Hardware

MIT Spinout Extends Bridge Lifespan by 100 Years

2025-05-24

MIT Spinout Extends Bridge Lifespan by 100 Years

Allium Engineering, founded by two MIT PhDs, is revolutionizing infrastructure with a new technology that triples the lifespan of bridges and other structures. By adding a thin layer of stainless steel cladding to traditional rebar, they drastically improve corrosion resistance. This easily integrated process requires no special handling, significantly extends infrastructure lifespan, reduces maintenance needs, and lowers carbon emissions. Already used in several US projects, Allium's technology promises rapid global scaling, building a more durable, affordable, and sustainable infrastructure for the future.

(news.mit.edu)

Tech Infrastructure

8 Years of Off-Grid Power: One Man's 1000+ Recycled Laptop Battery Home Energy System

2025-04-01

8 Years of Off-Grid Power: One Man's 1000+ Recycled Laptop Battery Home Energy System

A resourceful individual, known online as Glubux, has powered his home for eight years using over 1000 recycled laptop batteries! This ingenious, eco-friendly system, combined with solar panels, has required zero battery replacements. Starting with a basic solar panel and forklift battery setup, Glubux gradually expanded his system, eventually building a dedicated warehouse to house and maintain the growing collection of repurposed batteries. He overcame challenges like uneven battery discharge rates by cleverly rearranging cells, creating a robust and reliable off-grid power solution. This remarkable feat demonstrates the potential of upcycling e-waste for sustainable energy solutions, powering his home and appliances for eight years without issue.

(techoreon.com)

Tech e-waste recycling

Accessibility Improvement Request: Two-Way Conversation Feature

2025-04-09

Accessibility Improvement Request: Two-Way Conversation Feature

A user with auditory processing disorder reports issues with the app's two-way conversation feature. On iPad, the feature only occupies one-third of the screen, resulting in tiny text. While the app transcribes speech, it lacks text-to-speech functionality, hindering replies. The user suggests adding keyboard input for easier text-based communication and doesn't require the app's home sounds/alarm features.

(apps.apple.com)

Development auditory processing disorder speech-to-text

C Programming's Dark Corners: Exploiting Obscure Syntax

2025-01-10

C Programming's Dark Corners: Exploiting Obscure Syntax

This article delves into the lesser-known corners of C syntax, showcasing techniques like function renaming using `typedef` and `asm` keywords, bypassing compiler checks with forward parameter declarations, and employing function declarations as `for` loop iterators. The author uses a series of mind-bending code examples to illustrate the flexibility and complexity of C, prompting reflection on the boundaries of the C standard and compiler implementations. The article is written with humor and is best suited for those with prior C programming experience.

(lcamtuf.substack.com)

Development Coding Tricks

VMware's Decline? Gartner Predicts a Third of Workloads Will Migrate by 2028

2025-09-12

VMware's Decline? Gartner Predicts a Third of Workloads Will Migrate by 2028

Gartner analyst Julia Palmer predicts that over one-third of workloads currently running on VMware will migrate to other platforms by 2028. Broadcom's revised VMware licensing program prevents hyperscalers from selling VMware subscriptions, pushing customers towards alternatives. Palmer advises cautious assessment and strategic migration choices, including Nutanix, public clouds, or Microsoft Azure Local, emphasizing application modernization. She cautions against cost-cutting as the sole migration driver and highlights the potential of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.

(www.theregister.com)

Tech

Denmark Ditches Microsoft, Embraces Open Source

2025-06-12

Denmark Ditches Microsoft, Embraces Open Source

Denmark's Ministry of Digitization is abandoning Microsoft products in favor of Linux and LibreOffice. This move prioritizes 'digital sovereignty' and reduces reliance on a few tech providers, fueled partly by concerns over US influence following President Trump's Greenland ambitions. Half the ministry will transition to Linux and LibreOffice this summer, with a complete switch expected by fall. Major cities like Copenhagen and Aarhus are following suit, highlighting a growing trend towards open-source solutions.

(www.heise.de)

Tech

Reliving the Dawn of Space Exploration: Restored Mercury and Gemini Photos

2025-09-16

Reliving the Dawn of Space Exploration: Restored Mercury and Gemini Photos

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Gemini missions, a new book, *Gemini & Mercury Remastered*, vividly brings to life the thrilling early days of American space exploration. Featuring 300 meticulously restored NASA photographs from the Mercury and Gemini programs, the book delves into the stories behind the images, showcasing the courage and pioneering spirit of America's first astronauts. Author Andy Saunders discusses his inspiration and favorite stories in an interview, taking us back to the very beginning of human spaceflight and the momentous first escape from Earth.

(arstechnica.com)

Tech Historical Photos

Building an Autonomous LLM Game Master with Small Models and Synthetic Data

2025-05-29

Building an Autonomous LLM Game Master with Small Models and Synthetic Data

This post details the journey of building an autonomous LLM Game Master for TTRPGs. Initially aiming for an agentic approach, the author opted for a bottom-up strategy to gain deeper understanding of model development. Due to limited compute, a small Qwen3 model was chosen, trained on the Shadowdark RPG rulebook processed via OCR into markdown. A Shadowdark QA Bench was created for evaluation, comparing several metrics before settling on keyword-based matching. After pretraining and knowledge augmentation (creating multiple restatements of the rulebook text), the model achieved a 60% accuracy on the benchmark, meeting the author's goal. The next step is assistant tuning.

(gygaxtest.com)

Development Synthetic Data

Zed: The World's Fastest Open-Source AI Code Editor

2025-05-07

Zed: The World's Fastest Open-Source AI Code Editor

Zed, the world's fastest AI code editor, is now open-source! Built in Rust, it features fully open-source AI capabilities, letting users interact with an AI agent via the Agent Panel to modify, write, and understand code. The AI agent can grasp your codebase and assist without prior training or indexing. Zed prioritizes user privacy; conversations are private by default and data isn't harvested. It supports various language models and allows custom models or local runs via Ollama. Currently available for macOS and Linux, with a Windows release planned for late 2025.

(zed.dev)

Development AI code editor

Putin's 'Project Russia': A Stealth War Against Western Democracy

2025-01-13

Putin's 'Project Russia': A Stealth War Against Western Democracy

A Washington Spectator article exposes 'Project Russia,' a plan distributed to high-ranking Russian officials and thought leaders between 2005 and 2010. This plan details a program of spiritual warfare aimed at weakening Western democracies, culminating in a 'controlled global collapse' and the establishment of a supranational state headed by a 'Prince-Monk.' The plan's chilling alignment with current events, its links to FSB-connected groups, and its exploitation of societal divisions within the US are highlighted. The article warns of potential catastrophic consequences, including a US debt default and attacks on the dollar, fueled by figures like Elon Musk. It urges Americans to be vigilant and defend democratic values.

(washingtonspectator.org)

Tech Putin Geopolitics

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